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28 November, 2011

So, some of you have noticed that my google reader share is dead (not updated anymore). That's not me being lazy, but google being a bit evil and trying to shove google+ down our throats by killing the old facilities instead of integrating plus into the existing stuff. So, there is no reader share anymore, and my iPad newsreader (reeder), which was responsible of most of the share posts, does not support google+ yet. Stay tuned.

25 November, 2011

I always wanted to learn how to script Photoshop (what I learned is that it's a pain and the documentation sucks...), so yesterday I started googling and created a little script to emulate cleartypeon images. Here is the source (it assumes that a rgb image is open in PS):

// 3x "cleartype" shrink script

var doc = app.activeDocument;

var docWidth = doc.width.as("px");

var docHeight = doc.height.as("px");

doc.flatten();

// let's go linear RGB

doc.bitsPerChannel = BitsPerChannelType.SIXTEEN;

doc.changeMode(ChangeMode.RGB);

// now that's a bit tricky... we have to go through an action, which has binary data... which I'm not sure it will be cross-platform

08 November, 2011

This is obviously going to be off-topic with the rest of the blog... If you landed here for the first time, this is a rendering related blog and this article is an exception to the rule.

As the Europe's and Italy's financial crisis deepens, news crossed the wire today that prime minister Berlusconi vowed to resign. I see many people asking around the world how it was possible that this happens only now, how did Berlusconi manage to be in power for seventeen years even after countless scandals and accusations. While in general I think it's not surprising, and the eight years of Bush administration could be served as an example, I'd like to try to explain what's peculiar about Italy's situation (of course, in my point of view).

Also, of course, I will make generalizations in the following. In no way I want to express that this is applies to everyone and everything, that should be pretty clear.

Survivalists

One way or another, we keep going on. This is by far what I believe to be the deepest of our problems. We don't care much about our society, we avert our eyes and keep going on, everyone trying to find a hole in which to live their lives.

We are masters in bending (if there is a profit to be made) or ignoring laws. Even our image outside the country is that of creative, chaotic individuals (at best), known for being obsessed about family and our own small individualities.

We are not socialists not liberals, we are just driven towards what can get us a gain tomorrow morning. Mind you, to a degree this happens everywhere, but it's not a defining quality of a population quite as it happens in Italy, where is deeply buried everywhere, from how people live their lives to how companies make business.

Even our economy, made mostly of small or family owned companies, with our comparatively large private savings and our huge public debt, is a testimony of this mentality.

I can't tell why this is the case, we are a young republic and unification was not a smooth deal, but we don't believe in society. Berlusconi is the embodiment of all this, and I don't know how much he was just "born this way" or how much he knowingly acts to please, to be popular, but he is certainly great in leveraging such sentiments. His political message, either explicitly or implicitly has always been "vote for me and I'll let you live your lives without control", "you don't need to be responsible for your actions", "I was successful, don't ask me how, you want to be like me, I won't ask you how"...
Berlusconi was never a left or right wing politician, he is obsessed about communism and certainly sees Italy's leftists as pure evil, but his actions are not the ones of a liberal. Among other things, he's remembered for saying openly at an entrepreneurs' convention that companies without off-shore operations were not led smartly, and that evading taxes (one of Italy's chief problems) was morally sound in a country like ours (in which taxes are too high). He didn't them proceed to lower the taxes and impose strict controls to have everyone paying the right amount, or to incentive competition and freedom of enterprise.

In the first months of his government he proceeded in the opposite direction, abrogating liberalization laws that were passed by the previous government, loosening controls over financial transactions and not reducing a single tax. Not touching established interests, not reducing bureaucracy, but just allowing people to just screw each other more freely.

Shameless

Berlusconi is probably not the worst individual in Italy's history. Corruption and misgovernment were always there and can be even tracked to the same underlying sentiment. The first republic created a massive debt because political parties were quite literally buying votes by flushing enormous amounts of public money into all kinds of public ventures, creating hundreds of thousands of "fake" jobs, public employers who were pretty much useless. But it came down onto his knees when it was found that politicians also used public money to fund their own parties. There was corruption, but there is was still a sense of shame.

Berlusconi took inspiration from this and pushed it one step further, he was proud of his tricks, every trial he escaped by passing laws in his own favor, every lie and joke he said made him look "smarter", more successful. It's not that the vast majority of Italians do not know he was a thief, that's also why many of his voters were even shy of saying so, especially if singled out.

It's that deep down, they knew, but they admired his skill, they wanted to live the same dream, to take the easy way and just not have to care. That's also why for years even after all the sex scandals he managed to keep a mostly Catholic country under control. That's why he still now has a huge following...

Media and Opposition

These two aspects were also important and I'm sure there is a lot more to be said, but I think they don't contribute to explain the Berlusconi phenomenon quite as understanding how much deeply he connects with some Italian sentiments.

Berlusconi owns most of Italy's media and he is renown to be a great communicator. He lies, but his lies are so constant and so fiercely defended by so many, that they slowly become truths. Words slowly lose their meaning and the public becomes divided into factions who do not reason but just mindlessly cheer for one or the other party.

Again, that's partially a "quality" of Italians, being more emotional than rational, being hot headed and profoundly divided. But he managed to exploit that incredibly well.

His power does not extend over only media of course, most if not everyone in his party is strongly tied to him, he choose men with little political past and respectability of their own, people who depended on him to be elected. Berlusconi IS his party, and everyone sings the song he sings. And he made pretty clear that was the way from the start, his party always had direct references to him in the logo, in the hymns, everywhere. Everyone laughs at his jokes. Everyone follows the same rules, tells the sames words, uses the same dialectic tricks. I'm not sure if it's imitation or doctrine but it's powerful.

On the other hand the opposition is fragmented and largely seen as made of intellectuals and professional politicians who do not have any connection with the people. (which to a degree can be even very true). They were always bad communicators so it was easy for Berlusconi to play them, routinely saying that there was no better alternative than him, that the left-wing was made of communists that had no real plan other than raising the taxes (even if financial pressure increases or decreases have not really been strongly linked to any particular government). Furthermore they showed no cohesion, being unable to claim even the huge victories they sometimes achieved (Italy was able to enter the Euro as one of the founding parters due to the work of a left-wing government for example) and not being able to look past their divisions.

Angelo Pesce. Twitter: @kenpex.
I'm a rendering technical director.
This blog is my place to jot (incoherent, disorganized) notes about various things, so I can remove them from my head and keep them safely on the internet.